Tag Archives: chooses

I was five. Kindergarten graduation day. I was totally into the cute boy with the “rat tail” hair style and the hi-top sneaks with multi-colored, neon laces.

That’s my first memory of crushing on a dude. Though according to this guy, it never happened. I’m either a liar or a victim of child abuse when I look back on such puppy attractions (which would of course be received as benign and adorable if they were male-female). Oh, and a certain talk show host is a “big headed” source of rage if she gives credence to the remembrances:

But don’t worry. Somehow we think Oprah will find solace in either her blankie, a warm shoulder, or the gagillion dollar empire that bears her name.

As for this writer? Well l find solace in knowing that my biological attractions weren’t faked, because there was no reason to fake them. And this was true when those attractions had nothing to do with my junk and where I wanted to place it, and everything to do with my impetus to ditch pal Nicole whenever Ethan requested a pretend opponent for his pretend Hulk Hogan.

Many of us are familiar with the struggle that so many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender teens face. Anti-LGBT bullying in schools is out of control and has led to a number of recent teen suicides.

Yet a top Mormon Church apostle has chosen this precise moment to broadcast a message of intolerance to millions.

Boyd K. Packer, the second-highest Mormon leader, said same-sex attraction is “impure and unnatural” and can be overcome, and that same-sex unions are morally wrong and “against God’s law and nature.”

Please add your name to our open letter showing the Mormon Church hierarchy that it has risked further alienating vulnerable LGBT youth with potentially devastating consequences – and after you sign the letter, please post it on Facebook and share it with your friends so people everywhere know that these views are scientifically wrong and misguided.

Never was there a time where compassion was needed more, but instead Mr. Packer chose to use his twice-a-year address to spew anti-LGBT remarks. The kids deserve better.

These are the bigots who took away our right to marry in California. Who tell our children that they don’t deserve to love or be loved. That God would never want us to be gay. It’s bigots like this who are responsible for our children thinking they have no option other than suicide.

Boyd K. Packer, president of the Mormon “Quorum of Twelve Apostles”:

“There are those today who not only tolerate but advocate voting to change laws that would legalize immorality, as if a vote would somehow alter the designs of God’s laws and nature,” Boyd K. Packer, president of the church’s Quorum of Twelve Apostles, said in a strongly worded sermon about the dangers of pornography and same-sex marriage. “A law against nature would be impossible to enforce. Do you think a vote to repeal the law of gravity would do any good?”

Good one! By the way, what does nature say about polygamy?

[T]he power to create offspring “is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness. It is the key — the very key.” Some argue that attraction that is “impure and unnatural” is “pre-set and cannot [be] overcome, Packer said. “Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father.” Alluding to the Utah-based church’s support of laws such as California’s Proposition 8 that would define marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, Packer said, “Regardless of the opposition, we are determined to stay on course.” “We cannot change; we will not change,” the senior apostle declared unequivocally.

As Dan Savage has explained all too well, bigotry like this helps convince gay kids to kill themselves. People who tell them that God would never have made them this way. People who tell them that they’re immoral, that they’re sick, that they don’t deserve to love or be loved.

I know the Mormons like to think of themselves as Christians (well, Christians who believe that Jesus had sex with Mary). But if they really want people to believe that they’re Christian, maybe they should start acting like one.